The House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday that would modify the immigration system to allow more highly skilled immigrants to obtain permanent resident visas. The goal is to reduce visa backlogs where highly skilled employees who were already approved for legal permanent resident status, primarily from India and China, would then face another 70 years of waiting in order to receive their documentation.
Currently, there are limits on the number of employment-based green cards available annually to each country.
The highly skilled immigrants work primarily for employers in the areas of science, technology, and engineering, and lived in the United States on temporary visas.
Many of these skilled foreign workers are sent from China and India, and are forced to wait many years for their green cards because of the country limit requirement. The bill would eliminate the country limits after a three-year transition period, allowing all employment-based green cards to be issued on a first-come, first-served basis, according to a report from The New York Times. However, the bill does not address the issue of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
The bill is expected to pass in the Senate.
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